Monday, August 11, 2014

In keeping with my theme of 1st appearances of characters from Marvels' 'Guardians of the Galaxy'"...I never thought I'd be saying these words..but buckle up, True-Believers! Here's the 1st appearance of Howard the Duck from Adventure Into Fear with Man-Thing #19 from 1973!

Enjoy!

Seriously, enjoy. That Lucasfilm piece of shit was just that, a piece of shit. Steve Gerber spun a mighty good web (-ed foot) of stories with our much-maligned mallard, and the character deserves his just do.

Maybe not in THIS story (blink and you might miss him) but this, as they say, was only the beginning!

Sunday, August 10, 2014

Keeping on with sharing my happiness over how fun and well done "Marvels 'Guardians of the Galaxy'" movie is, I'm following up the first appearance of Groot from yesterday with the first appearance of The Guardians themselves today.

A different membership than what we see in the movie and modern comics, is great peek back at the original concept in 1969 in Marvel Super-Heroes issue #18.

It's got pure space age fun (1969 after all is when man first set foot on another world, and the universe became a lot smaller. Also it features a very early appearance of the Badoon who had only premiered a year earlier in a Silver Surfer comic.

BEST of all, it has the stunning storytelling of grand cartoonist/illustrator Gene Colon. Not your run of the mill comic artist, Gene found dynamism and movement in very different ways than Jack Kirby or any of Kirby's imitators who tried to conform to the new "Marvel Style". Colon was his own man. His work is sorely missed.

Saturday, August 9, 2014

In case yez hasn't all seen the movie-fun-ride-of-the-summer yet, the 10th Marvel Studios release titled "The Guardians of the Galaxy", then quit reading this blog and run out and see it!!!

Back? OK. Wasn't that BITCHIN'!?!?!?!? YEAH! I thought so too.

Marvel put faith in and had respect for it's audience, and gave director James Gunn room to move and give us a movie with characters that no one but the hardest core of comics fans was familiar with (and a team whose roster has changed multiple times over it's decades long run as a 4th or 5th tier set of characters) and sucked us all in!

The characters in this incarnation of the team are culled from all manner of corners of the Marvel comics universe and it's interesting for the new-comers as well as we olden timers to revisit where they originally appeared.

Here's the first appearance of Groot, the character who give us a great deal of the heart and soul of the movie. Groot actually pre-dates the Marvel Age of super heroes a bit, premiering in "Tales to Astonish" #1 cover dated November 1960, during Marvel's (then called Atlas Comics) "Monster Era". When most of their line consisted of horror and sci-fi stuff and for a couple of years was overwhelmed with giant-monsters-from-outer-space stuff.

Enough of me yapping, here's the first appearance of Groot, by Stan (he may actually have been involved in the writing in these days and not just taking a paycheck) Lee, Jack Kirby and Dick Ayers.

"I Challenged...GROOT!

Dig in, y'all!

Just like we all thought, "Twas TERMITES killed the beast!" to paraphrase.

IMPORTANT NOTE! Marvel has also taken great strides with this film (whether at behest of Disney or a more dynamic management team within...I'm unclear) and are giving unprecedented (by them surely) credit to the creators of the characters which are proving to be such cash cows to them all. Most notably negotiating with Bill Mantlo, the creator of breakaway character "Rocket Raccoon". Mr. Mantlo suffered great injury (including brain damage) in a hit and run accident in the 90's, and has required 24/7 medical care since. It's been announced by his brother/guardian that the folks at Marvel are coming to a financial arrangement in the form of a pay-out to Bill. Applause for this breakthrough is allowed...now!